Review - Substituting Ingredients, The A to Z Kitchen Reference

I recently received a copy of Substituting Ingredients, The A to Z Kitchen Reference by Becky Sue Epstein.

I have to say, this is a kitchen must have if you do any amount of cooking or baking at home. 1,000 kitchen substitutions. Don't like a particular ingredient? Look up a substitute. Don't have a particular ingredient in your kitchen and don't want to make a mad dash to the grocery store? Look up a substitute.

For example, say a recipe calls for Butter or Margarine and the kids just used the last of it on their toast for breakfast. 1 Cup Butter or Margarine is equal to 7/8 of a cup of vegetable oil (canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil.

The book also includes substitutions for a long list of spices. (Who has room in their kitchen for every single spice that one could ever need?)

Also included are measurement equivalents, including metric and a guide for temperature equivalents.

Rut-ro...kitchen disaster. In the back of the book are simple solutions to salvage most cooking disasters.

The final chapter includes kitchen formulas for how to make your own cleaners and what to use to clean various things.

There are also a number of recipes in the book.

All in all, this is an excellent addition to any kitchen. I find myself referring to it quite often and I'm sure you will to.

About the author:

"For the past 20 years Epstein has been providing food, wine and spirits coverage for local, regional and national publications on both the East and West Coasts, from Art & Antiques and Luxury Golf & Travel to Food + Wine and Wine Spectator. She began her career as a restaurant reviewer for the Los Angeles Times while working in film and television during the 1980s and early 1990s. Having lived abroad for several years, her expertise includes food history and travel, entertaining, aperitifs, dessert wines and spirits."

Substituting Ingredients, The A to Z Kitchen Reference by Becky Sue Epstein is currently available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com,Borders.com, and your local bookstore.

Lola's Diner Disclaimer: I was given this book to review. This review is 100% my opinion and has not been edited or reviewed by anyone. I was not compensated in any other way for this product review.

Lola's Diner©2008-2010

How to go bat shit crazy or taking 4 kids camping...

Turns out, it's the same result!

Take the following ingredients:

Girlfriend.
Girlfriend's son and daughter.
Me.
My son and daughter.
Pop-up camper (with canopy, that we very adeptly assembled. Thank goodness!).
Huge van with a wonky trailer hitch.
Tent (sans poles).
Rain (and lots of it).

And you get:

4 kids who have to sleep with you and your girlfriend in the camper, because the tent poles weren't in the bag. (Ok, the pop-up camper does sleep 6, but it's awfully close quarters.)
4 kids who still refused to use the tent, even though you ran back home on Saturday to get the tent poles and spent 2 hours putting the tent together.
2 really bored kids because they refused to plan ahead and pack any reading material or electronic hand held games. (Bet you can't guess whose 2 kids those were.)
2 really content kids because they brought hand held electronic games.
4 disappointed kids because the rain kept us from sustaining a campfire long enough to make smores the old fashioned way and had to use the microwave oven in the pop-up camper.
One happy camper who baited everyone's hooks and actually enjoyed dealing with the worms. (Yes, amazingly enough, this was my daughter! I wish I would have had my camera handy to take a photo of her diggin' in to that container of bait, she was everyone's hero.)
Almost locked in the campgrounds because of said wonky trailer hitch which for some reason would not attach properly when we were trying to leave. The campground workers came by to warn us, and they were literally going to lock the gates and lock us in. Somehow that did not help us complete our task, but we eventually managed and got out just before they locked the gates.

The 2nd night the kids refused to sleep in the tent, even though we got it completely assembled with the canopy and dried out the tent floor with towels. It rained hard almost all night Saturday night. When we went to take down the tent on Sunday, it was completely dry inside. They could have slept in the tent, no problem. Grrrr.

Oh well, we survived. And we will be doing it again...even though my kids think they are going to scam their dad or Anastasia into letting them stay with them instead. I've spoken to both, neither of them will be scammed, they are on to the kids. Lol!

So for the next camping trip, we will add the following ingredients:

Electronic hand held games.
Reading material.
Ipods.
Board games.
Outdoor games.
No rain, or at least not every day.
Plenty of dry firewood.

Yes, I'm a happy camper. I'm enjoying it. A few tense moments with the kids due to the weather, but nothing that can't be resolved with better planning (as in planning for outdoor AND indoor activities for them). It was not a bad intro to camping with them. Yes, I'd do it again!

Lola's Diner©2008-2010

Social Parade Follower Friday Blog-Hop

Hi and welcome to Lola's Diner.

Step up to the counter and grab yourself a seat. Take a look around. Grab a cup of Joe or a milkshake and make yourself at home.

Be sure to check out my previous posts.
Like what you see?
Become a regular by becoming a follower.

Don't forget about my monthly comment contest!
Top commenters get a free ad.

1st Place - 3 Week Ad
2nd Place - 2 Week Ad
3rd Place - 1 Week Ad

Social Parade Followers Friday Blog-Hop is a weekly link-up hosted by Smart and Trendy Moms. It was created for socializing and to get new followers, fans, subscribers, readers without feeling overwhelmed. Every week there will be a new link-up! Its about fun one follower, fan and reader at a time!


Lola's Diner©2008-2010

May Top Commenter Winners!

1st Place - 3 Week Free Ad.
2nd Place - 2 Week Free Ad.
3rd Place - 1 Week Free Ad.

Here are the results:

3 way tie for first place, so all 3 ads will run for 3 weeks.

Lin @ Duck and Wheel With String 3 Week Ad spot.
Stacey @ All Stace, All The Time 3 Week Ad spot.
Harriet @ Harriet And Friends 3 Week Ad spot.

Congratulations to the winners! Ads will be up shortly.

Just a reminder to everyone that my Top Commenter Contest will be running in May, so now is your chance to stake out your spot at the counter or grab a booth.

Feel free to copy this contest and link back to me to give me credit for it!

Lola's Diner©2008-2010

No longer a camping virgin

And I have to say...I love it! We really had a great time. I went camping with my girlfriend. (No kids!)

We did hit a snag, and had to start out Saturday morning, instead of Friday night, but it was beyond our control. We hit Palace Campgrounds in Galena, IL late morning and set about to find the perfect, shady spot to park the pop-up camper and set up camp in the primitive camping area. (No electric hook-up, etc.) Our first attempt at parking the camper failed, due to the primitive camping area being quite hilly. Our second attempt, just off the dirt road under some trees was perfect, except that we were at a bit of an angle. It made cooking a bit of a challenge in the camper, but we managed. It also caused us to joke endlessly about the mount and dismount of the seats and table in the camper. Due to the angle, we had a bit of maneuvering to get into the seats and had to be on the lookout for sliding pencils and beverages.

As we were setting up the trailer we were treated to music and singing, courtesy of our camping neighbor. They had an acoustic guitar and a banjo. I joked with my girlfriend that maybe they were Deadheads. (She's a big Grateful Dead fan.) She's like 'yeah, right'. Next thing you know, our camping musicians break into a Dead tune. My girlfriend was laughing and shaking her head. They also did several Beatles' tunes, Arlo Guthrie, Dusty Springfield, and some things I didn't recognize, but it was awesome nonetheless. Stairway to Heaven, Blackbird, Yellow Submarine, Come Together, This Land Is Your Land, The Look Of Love. After awhile, I jokingly confessed that I hired the musicians to make our romantic camping getaway complete. When my girlfriend asked how I knew we'd end up in that spot, what if she would have gotten into that first camping spot? I said I didn't want to be negative, but I didn't think we'd get up that hill with the trailer. Lol!

The banjo player even hopped on the hayride wagon and treated fellow riders to some music as they rode around the campground.

So, a few shots from our trip:

05/30/10 hot air balloons over the trees viewed from our campsite.

05/30/10 Sunset

05/30/10 Cooking breakfast on an angle.

I also took a video of one of the songs we were treated to. Not great video because I took it on the sly from behind the van, but I think you can still get the idea of what we experienced. Great musicians. We overheard one of them say that they studied at The Academy of Music.



It was a great weekend and I look forward to future camping trips.

Lola's Diner©2008-2010

Randomness

Ok, so it's not Tuesday, but I haven't done Random Thoughts in awhile, so here ya go.

Sunday and Monday were hotter than heck. No A/C at our house. Central Air got zapped back during the tornado of '07. Didn't get any window units installed until Monday evening. Kids were staking out their sleeping spots in the living room right after it got installed. Lol!

Monday I spent the day in the car...running. First, I'm in the shower getting ready for my 2 doctor appointments of the day and my phone rings. It's my son. He missed the bus. (This happens quite often when he has delayed starts at school.) So I had to rush to get dressed and pick him up at the bus stop, run back home for forms I forgot, then run to the first doctor. (Who of course was running late.) Then run to the gyne's office, which I had trouble finding. Found it, got violated 9 ways to Sunday (don't you hate the gyne office? And to top it off, it was a doctor new to me...who was a male. Arghh!) I got real comfortable going to my previous gyne, since I was having "female trouble" and was there 2-3 times a month for what seemed like forever. This was different. And it was funny because since the tech hit the "Do you have any children" question before they hit the "orientation" question, they automatically assume hetero. Then as I'm discussing an issue, I dropped a pronoun and suddenly the tech is scrolling back to change the "orientation" question. Yes, I noticed. Anyway, since I was 15 minutes away from my girlfriend's house, I stopped by for a short visit. Then it was off to shopping to get something to nuke for dinner.

So my first doctor's appointment was practically triumphant! I got to find out exactly how much weight I've lost since February (since the break-up). I knew I lost weight because I've been having to buy new clothes, but I didn't know exactly how much. Wanna know? I know you wanna know! I lost 45 pounds since February! Woo hoo! Lin...you're not even going to recognize me when we meet up next month!

Lindsay Lohan...seriously...does anyone really believe your passport was stolen? Does anyone believe the white powder in the photos taken while you were abroad 'promoting a film' was not cocaine? Seriously? How are you going to manage with the alcohol monitor the judge mandated? Do you seriously think you can fool that thing?

The final episode of "Lost"...I never watched a single episode and I'm doing a happy dance that I didn't waste hours of my life watching them. I caught the last 1/2 hour and can I say how robbed I felt just watching that?

The final episode of "The Apprentice". How cool that both Holly and Brett got the full prize money for winning? And how cool that Brett won? I had been rooting for Sharon Osbourne until she left, then I switched to Brett's camp. Awesome!

So, what did you think of "Lost" and "The Apprentice" final episodes?

Lola's Diner©2008-2010

Cookbook Review - Substitute Yourself Skinny By Chef Susan Irby

I recently received a copy of Substitute Yourself Skinny by Chef Susan Irby, the Bikini Chef.
This is truly a collection of great recipes for anyone looking to either lose weight or maintain their weight by eating better with substituting lower fat or lower calorie ingredients. "Cut the calories, keep the flavor."



The book includes 175 Super Slimming Recipes. Some of the recipes you'll find in the book are Biscuits and Gravy, Chinese Chicken Salad, Blooming Onion with Bacon, Spinach Artichoke Dip, Queso Dip, BBQ Sliders, Chicken Satay, Molten Chocolate Cake, Tiramisu, I could go on and on. Lots of great recipes, along with lots of photos. And bonus! Each recipe includes a Nutritional Breakdown and compares a regular full fat/calorie versions calories to the Substitute Yourself Skinny Recipe calories.

Kung-pow Pork
Ingredients:
1 TBS Canola Oil
3/4 lb Pork Loin, trimmed of fat and cut into 1" cubes
1 Clove Garlic, minced
Fine zest of 1 Orange
1 1/2 TBS Sherry Wine
4 dried Chili Peppers, minced
1/2 Red Bell Pepper, chopped
1/2 Yellow Bell Pepper, chopped
1 Cup Snow Peas, left whole
4 Green Onions, green and white parts, minced
2 TBS low-sodium Soy Sauce
1/2 TBS fresh Gingerroot, minced
1 TBS Honey
1 TBS roasted peanuts, chopped

1. In a large saucepan, heat the oil on medium and add the Pork. Cook until just cooked through, about 3 minutes. Add the Garlic and Orange zest. Cook for about 1 minute. Add the Sherry, Chili Peppers, Bell Peppers, Snow Peas, Onions, Soy Sauce, Gingerroot, and Honey. Saute for about 3-4 minutes.
2. When the vegetables are just tender, add the peanuts. Serve on plates in 1 Cup portions.
Original Recipe 500 Calories
Substitute Yourself Skinny Recipe 275 Calories.

Recipe from Substitute Yourself Skinny by Chef Susan Irby, the Bikini Chef.

Wouldn't this be great served in lettuce wraps?

About the Author:

"Chef Susan Irby has worked with multiple Master Chefs including George McNeil, Todd English, and Ming Tsai. Known as the Bikini Chef, specializing in figure "figure-flattering flavors", Chef Susan is host of The Bikini Lifestyle with Susan Irby The Bikini Chef on KFWB News talk 980 in Los Angeles and author of The $7 A Meal Quick And Easy Cookbook, The $7 A Meal Healthy Cookbook and Cooking With Susan. She has cooked for several celebrities including Patrick Swayze, David Spade, Kate Sagal and Bill Handel, and appeared on the Patti Gribow Show and KLAC Los Angeles and numerous other media outlets. She lives in Orange County, CA. Visit Susan Irby.com."

Substitute Yourself Skinny by Chef Susan Irby, the Bikini Chef is currently available online at Amazon.com, Borders.com, Barnes And Noble.com, and at your local bookstore.

Lola's Diner Disclaimer: I was given this cookbook to review. This review is 100% my opinion and has not been edited or reviewed by anyone. I was not compensated in any other way for this product review.

Lola's Diner©2008-2010